Thanks for the answers, it's becoming more clear. The possibility suggested by Kalle makes sense, however I made some test about it and I don't think it's the cause of my problem. This grid column was being sorted without exceptions with Java 7 + Tapestry 5.3.7, plus I checked and none of the values in the column is null. I have also tested calling Arrays.sort with some null elements and it throws a null pointer both with Java 7 and Java 8. My problem has most probably to do with the fact that that column is not part of the grid data source, as Cezary suggested, and it was so also when we were using Java 7.
About Cezary's hypothesis, I think my problem is definitely in that area, but there is probably also something going on related to the different Tapestry version because the column was defined in the same way when using 5.3.7 and in that case there was no exception. The column is defined like this: - In the page template, one param of the grid tag is t:add="prop:gridAdd" - In the page Java code, there is the corresponding public String getGridAdd() { return " myColumn1, myColumn2, myColumn3, myColumn4"; } where let's say that "myColumn3" is the column whose sorting fails. - In the page template, within the t:grid tag there is the definition of the customized content of that column: <p: myColumn3Cell>${ myColumn3}</p: myColumn3Cell> - In the page Java code, there is the method returning the value for that column: public String getMyColumn3() { return aStringThatIsNeverNull; } So I'm trying to find out if this way of defining my column is not right in 5.3.8 although it was not failing in 5.3.7, in order to rectify it. -----Original Message----- From: Cezary Biernacki [mailto:cezary...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, June 27, 2016 18:10 To: Tapestry users <users@tapestry.apache.org> Subject: Re: Null pointer on sort with 5.3.8 that didn't occur with 5.3.7 Your stack trace seems to indicate that conduit (a mechanism connecting Tapestry with a column) is not available. It can happen if the column is manually added to the model. Was the column sortable with Tapestry 5.3.7? How is this column defined? Best regards, Cezary On Mon, Jun 27, 2016 at 4:43 PM, Davide Vecchi <d...@amc.dk> wrote: > Hi everybody > > For now I cannot post code to reproduce this problem because it only > occurs with one columns of a specific grid from a big application and > so far I wasn't able to extract the code to reproduce the error into a > runnable example. But after posting this I will keep trying and if I > manage I will post that. > > We migrated this web application from Java 1.7 + Tapestry 5.3.7 to > Java > 1.8 with Tapestry 5.3.8 . > > Clicking on the column header of this column - which contains String > values - causes the exception below. > > While I'm investigating this error I was wondering if someone is aware > of differences in the grid sorting of Tapestry 5.3.8 that might cause > it to throw a null-pointer where Tapestry 5.3.7 wouldn't (and maybe > should; it's likely that there is a mistake of mine that was somehow > being "forgiven" by 5.3.7). > > Stacktrace: > > java.lang.NullPointerException > ? > org.apache.tapestry5.internal.grid.CollectionGridDataSource$2.compare( > CollectionGridDataSource.java:78) > ? > org.apache.tapestry5.internal.grid.CollectionGridDataSource$3.compare( > CollectionGridDataSource.java:91) ? > java.util.TimSort.countRunAndMakeAscending(TimSort.java:355) > ? java.util.TimSort.sort(TimSort.java:234) > ? java.util.Arrays.sort(Arrays.java:1512) > ? java.util.ArrayList.sort(ArrayList.java:1454) > ? java.util.Collections.sort(Collections.java:175) > ? > org.apache.tapestry5.internal.grid.CollectionGridDataSource.prepare(Co > llectionGridDataSource.java:97) > ? > my.package.gui.tapestry.components.AMCGridEmbedded$CachingDataSource.p > repare(AMCGridEmbedded.java:853) > ? > my.package.gui.tapestry.components.AMCGridEmbedded.setupDataSource(AMC > GridEmbedded.java:1174) > ? > my.package.gui.tapestry.components.AMCGridEmbedded.setupRender(AMCGrid > Embedded.java:655) > ? > my.package.gui.tapestry.components.AMCGridEmbedded.advised$setupRender > _1a14d3f8fd924(AMCGridEmbedded.java) > ? > my.package.gui.tapestry.components.AMCGridEmbedded$Invocation_setupRen > der_1a14d3f8fd923.proceedToAdvisedMethod(Unknown > Source) > ? > org.apache.tapestry5.internal.plastic.AbstractMethodInvocation.proceed(AbstractMethodInvocation.java:84) > ? .... > ? .... > >